The week went by agonizingly slowly once it occurred to Lexa during school on Monday that she probably wouldn't get a chance to see Clarke at all until maybe Friday night. It was a rather depressing realization, and it somewhat surprised Lexa that it hurt so much to think that she might not see Clarke's bright smile for five days.

How did that happen? One day, you see a face you've never seen before and it makes you look twice, and then a month later, that face is all you want to look at. On one hand, it made Lexa feel warm and fuzzy, but on the other, it was terrifying. She hadn't ever felt like this about anybody.

Monday passed by quickly, despite her mood, and it ended rather nicely with a phone call from Clarke while the blonde was heading home from The Bean and Lexa was trying to keep her eyes open after hours of forcing herself to do homework. Hearing Clarke's voice was not the same as seeing her in person, of course, but it was a decent filler.

On Tuesday, Lexa wondered if what she was feeling could be defined as feeling clingy. Was it clingy that she wished she could see Clarke every day? Or that was constantly conscious of her phone, hoping it would vibrate to let her know that she'd gotten a new text? She didn't want to be a cliché – the clingy girl hanging around the older boy, or girl in this case, and eventually driving them away.

But it didn't feel that way necessarily, and Lexa definitely didn't think that Clarke saw it that way.

Sometimes it felt like Anya saw it that way. Anya would sometimes comment on Lexa's relationship with Clarke as if it wasn't something serious, or wasn't something to be considered in the whirlwind of life. Lexa knew that that was probably because it wasn't her relationship, but sometimes she wondered if her best friend thought that it would eventually just die out and fade away.

On the plus side, Lexa knew for sure that Anya had at least accepted the fact that Lexa was a lesbian. She'd stopped bringing up guys, and on Tuesday even asked Lexa if she thought a certain girl was attractive. It was a strange shift, but if Anya was slow to accept Lexa dating Clarke, at least she could get past the fact that she liked girls.

On Tuesday night, Clarke texted to say that she'd just gotten out of work after a long day of classes and was going to bed. Lexa didn't see the text until twenty minutes later, at which point she sighed sadly and tossed her phone away, laying down on her bed and staring up at the ceiling.

Her frenzy of different thoughts regarding Anya's opinion on her relationship had brought up a new question that she had avoided throughout the whole day. What exactly was her relationship with Clarke? Sure, they'd technically only been out on one date, but as Clarke had pointed out, it hadn't felt like the first date. At this point, it had been about a month since they'd met. It felt like longer, honestly.

But what was it really? Lexa really liked Clarke, and Clarke really liked Lexa, and they were going on dates and hanging out and kissing... were they girlfriends? Was that a conversation that still had to be had? Lexa hadn't called Clarke her girlfriend at all, because it hadn't really felt necessary to clarify, but if she had said that, would it have been wrong? Were she and Clarke girlfriends, or were they just casually dating?

She was sure that Clarke wasn't seeing anyone else, and Lexa definitely wasn't either, but were they explicitly exclusive? Did Clarke want that? Lexa definitely did.

Groaning, she reached for where she'd tossed her phone, and then started a text to the blonde.

To Clarke – Okay, I hope you sleep well. Btw, are you gonna be free on Friday night?

She expected, and received, no reply, and soon the need to sleep had overpowered her never ending train of thought, and she fell into a dreamless sleep.

Wednesday was easier, because she went over to Anya's after school and they forwent doing homework in favor of watching random movies off of Netflix. Lexa was pretty sure that Anya had realized how distracted Lexa had been over the past few days, and she appreciated her best friend's attempt to divert her thoughts. For the time that they were curled up in front of Anya's TV, it worked.

Thursday was like another Tuesday, and Lexa texted back and forth with Clarke all day while wondering what they were exactly. Clarke confirmed that she would be free on Friday night – but only if Lexa was willing to come to her apartment. Lexa, of course, was not opposed to doing so.

But Clarke had work for most of the afternoon until then, so on Friday, Lexa went straight home from school. She tried to make it upstairs before her mom could realize she was home – since the woman's Friday afternoon classes had been canceled. However, she had no such luck.

"Lexa! Did you eat lunch at school?"

"Uh, yeah?" Lexa stopped halfway up the stairs, turning and looking down at her mom, who had just exited from the kitchen.

"I have a fancy dinner sort of thing on campus today, but it's gonna be kind of late, so I thought maybe you could sit and chat with me while I have a late lunch, since we won't be able to have dinner together," her mom suggested, smiling.

"Mom, we never have dinner together," Lexa reminded the older woman with a raised eyebrow.

Her mother frowned. "Then maybe I would just like some time to catch up with you. Come down here and talk with me while I eat."

"Fine," Lexa agreed, sighing as she dropped her school bag on the stairs and trudged back down and then into the kitchen. She followed her mom over to their little breakfast nook that overlooked their small backyard. It was a little late for lunch, but Lexa chose not to question her mom's strange eating time. She was almost completely sure, anyway, that her mother had done it just to have an excuse to talk to Lexa.

"Have you been working on your college applications?"

"Yep."

Her mom coughed awkwardly. "Uh, well do you wanna tell me about it?"

"I've almost put together my whole application for Polis."

"Are you going to apply anywhere other than Polis?"

Lexa shrugged. "Sure, I'll apply for a few other schools, but Polis will be the easiest option, and it's not a bad school. They offer a wide range of majors, and I still don't know what I want to do yet, so that's perfect. Plus, they offered me a scholarship."

"I know, I was just curious. Obviously, I'm all for Polis. But oh, that reminds me. Are you going to graduate valedictorian?" Her mom gave her wide, expectant eyes.

"Um, no. I think that Anya will be getting it, actually. She's always had the slightly higher grades. The only difference is that we're taking different classes that don't necessarily have the same difficulty, but our GPAs get truncated before they rank us, so she'll probably end up above me," Lexa answered, though she hardly cared. "I'll be in the top percentages though."

"Mm. I thought you were focusing all of your energy on school. What happened to you recently, Lexa? You've been off of the radar more, at home less. I feel like I haven't had a real conversation with you since the beginning of summer," her mom said, narrowing her eyes in concern.

"I guess I've just developed a life separate from school, which is probably good considering that school isn't going to be my whole life forever."

The older woman cleared her throat. "Yes, but right now, that should be most all of your life. School is what's going to get you the rest of your life. You know that. I talked to Anya's mom, and she said that she's been just as focused as usual, and that she hasn't been out of the house as much on the weekends as you seem to have been. So who have you been hanging out with if not Anya?"

"My friend Luna," Lexa lied quickly, "you remember her?"

Her mom let out an displeased noise. "Oh yes, I do. She doesn't seem like the best kind of friend."

"She's a really good friend," Lexa insisted. She glanced down at her mom's plate of food, happy to see that it was almost gone. "Don't worry, mom, I'm on track for college. And I'm eighteen in less than three weeks, so soon I'm technically not even fully your responsibility."

"Lexa," her mom chided, "your well being will always be part of my responsibility. I'm your mother, and I want you to have a good life."

Lexa opened her mouth to reply, though she wasn't sure with what, when her mom's phone beeped from the kitchen counter.

"Oh! I forgot that I have to call another professor sometime before four! I better do that now."

"Ah, what time will you be out tonight?" Lexa asked quickly, as her mother stood and brought her empty plate to the sink.

"I'll be gone from probably seven until maybe eleven or so... maybe later, sometimes the professors go out for drinks after the conference dinners," she answered dismissively.

Lexa thought for a moment, and then found herself saying, "I might stay over at Anya's then."

"Sure thing, Lexa, as long as you've finished your homework. Now, I've gotta make this call. Thank you for chatting with me, I've missed this. Love you!" She grabbed her phone and rushed out of the room, leaving Lexa with a puzzled look on her face. Her mother was so strange and hard to understand – at some points, she wanted to be the only person in Lexa's life, and in another moment, she hardly cared about what Lexa was doing.

Lexa wasn't entirely sure that she minded, though.

That was until she found herself driving the way to Clarke's apartment, and the conversation that she'd had with Anya the Friday before dawned on her. She'd been lying to her mother for most of the summer already, and definitely now when it came to what she as doing all of the time. Her mother had such high expectations for her. What would she think if she knew that Lexa was gay, and that she was dating someone who probably fell below, in her mind, the type of people she wanted Lexa to date?

It made Lexa feel sick to think about it, but she tried her best to push it all out of her head as she approached the front doors of Clarke's apartment building. She recalled the number of Clarke's apartment and hit the little buzzer next to it. She was buzzed in without question, and it caused a small smile to appear on her face.

When she got up to Clarke's apartment, she knocked twice, and a few seconds later, the door swung open. Clarke was wearing sweats and a tank top, and Lexa was wearing similar clothes as well. It was a Friday night, after all.

"Hey," Clarke greeted, sounding tired.

"How was work?" Lexa asked as she stepped into the room. Clarke closed the door behind her.

"Boring." Clarke stepped closer to the brunette and placed a soft kiss on her lips, which Lexa leaned into, biting Clarke's lip when the blonde tried to pull away. Clarke chuckled at that, and the kiss lasted a few more seconds.

"Sorry," Lexa apologized without any hint of actual regret, "I just haven't seen you all week."

"Mm, valid," Clarke said, nodding. "You want food? I ordered pizza late last night and I have some cold leftovers in the fridge."

"Sure," Lexa agreed. Clarke smiled happily, turning around to step into her small kitchen. As she did, Lexa smiled to herself and silently sneaked out of the room and into Clarke's bedroom instead. The blonde's bed was messily made, and she wondered briefly if Clarke had made it just before Lexa came over. Unable to resist, Lexa sat on the blankets and leaned against the headboard.

Clarke came in with a puzzled look on her face a few seconds later, two slices of cold pizza in her hands. "Sure, Lexa, come on in and sit on my bed."

"It's comfy," Lexa justified, grinning as Clarke rolled her eyes and handed her one of the slices of pizza. She came and sat by Lexa as they started eating, and silence settled between them for a moment.

When they were finally finishing their pizza, Clarke turned to look at Lexa and said, "Well, you know how my week went, but how was yours?"

Lexa was just about to answer that it had been fine, or average at least, but both would've been a lie, and something inside of her seemed to deflate and give in, and she answered, "It was awful."

"What? Why?" Clarke asked, suddenly very concerned.

"I... just... ugh, multiple reasons. But right now I'm worn out from thinking about my mom," Lexa answered, slumping slightly against Clarke's headboard.

"What about your mom?" Clarke wondered softly, shifting so that her full body was sort of facing Lexa, rather than just her face. It gave the younger girl the impression that Clarke was actually fully listening, and that was something that Lexa rarely saw in anyone she'd ever spoken to. It made her feel special, somehow.

"She drives me insane. She has all of these high expectations for me, and I can meet most of them, because that's the way I was raised. You know, do well in school, focus on schoolwork over other things, get into college for four more years of school... which is fine, because I do want to go to college. But it's like she thinks that there shouldn't be any other aspect to me life. It really doesn't help that she's a fucking professor either," Lexa muttered, groaning and letting her eyelids fall over her tired eyes. "I was talking to Anya last week, and it made me think about how my mom would react if I told her that I'm gay.

"I'd like to think that she wouldn't care very much, but realistically... she'd see it as something that's somehow occupying my time. She wouldn't understand. She'd think that it was something distracting me from everything else – a phase or something else like that. It makes me never want to tell her. She would be so disappointed.

"And it sucks even more when I think about that," Lexa added quickly, just as she realized something else, "because now I'm thinking... what would my dad think? I know he doesn't care about me – he didn't even care enough to meet me at all as a kid. He was disappointed to even have a kid, wouldn't he be so much more disappointed to find out that I wasn't the perfect kid that I could've been?"

"Lexa," Clarke interrupted quickly, her voice softer than possibly any other time that Lexa had heard her speak, "you are not any less perfect because you're gay. And if your father was disappointed that you were born, he's an asshole, which means that his opinion definitely doesn't matter at all. As for your mom... sometimes parents are weird, and they forget about the whole love and care part of a family relationship, and jump straight to other things. For your mom, it's the drive for school and whatnot. For my parents, it's the 'well, we raised you, and we did kinda shitty job but at least we can pay for your college'... Even then, that's what my mom does. My dad is just... kinda checked out. So I get you on all the fucked up parents shit. But no matter what your mom says or does, it doesn't change who you are. And you are amazing, okay? You're smart, and beautiful, and funny, and yeah, you're gay, but you know, I'm not really mad at that."

Lexa heard a laugh escape through her own lips, and she opened her eyes to meet Clarke's blue gaze. "You know... I think I've figured you out."

Clarke blinked, seemingly caught off guard. "What?"

"I think I know why you're the way you are," Lexa murmured, tilting her head a little.

"Which is...?"

"Closed off, always being short with people and pretending like you're not secretly super sweet, which you are," Lexa answered, smiling. "I think I know why."

Clarke quirked up an eyebrow. "Oh yeah? Why?"

"It's because of your parents," Lexa said softly, turning slightly to face Clarke a little more. "Because they broke your trust, and screwed up the part of your life that you had on track. And I think you're scared that other people would do that, too."

Clarke smiled a little, and Lexa realized suddenly how close they were, and that Clarke's hand was resting lightly on her hip, drawing little circles over and over again over her shirt. "You might be right. But at this point, that's just kinda me. But you're right, I'm secretly sweet – but only with you... and maybe my friends, sometimes."

Lexa laughed quietly, rolling her eyes. "Works for me."

"Are you tired?"

"A little, but you look more tired," Lexa admitted, chuckling again. "If you were that tired, you could've told me not to come over."

Clarke shook her head. "Why would I do that? How tired I am doesn't change how much I missed seeing you," she insisted, pouting adorably. "Plus, you clearly needed to talk." Lexa couldn't resist scooting forward a little and pressing a kiss to those lips, one that was instantly returned. It was short, though, because they were both definitely tired.

Much closer to Clarke now, Lexa glanced between beautiful blue eyes and then murmured, "Thank you. For letting me talk. I feel a lot better."

"Good," Clarke whispered, smiling softly.

"Can I sleep here?" Lexa heard herself asking, aware that her green eyes were widening hopefully.

Clarke blinked in surprise. "Of course, but is that okay...?"

"My mom thinks I'm at Anya's house," Lexa offered up, unsure if that's what Clarke meant by her question. "I just want to be close to you. I missed you."

Clarke softened again immediately. "Of course, Lexa."

That's how they ended up sliding under the covers ten minutes later – after Lexa got up and went to the bathroom and washed her face – curling up next to each other. As Lexa buried her face into Clarke's neck, she realized that cuddling with the blonde was easily the most comfortable thing she'd ever experienced. She never wanted to move, so she pretended, as she drifted off to sleep, that she would never have to.